Monday, December 23, 2013

Veterans of twenty years of empty negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians may too easily dismiss the current talks, led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, as simply more of the same. Yet they are occurring in a dramatically changed political environment. What are the implications for Palestine of the regional upheavals of the past few years? How sincere are Kerry and the EU in their apparent determination to secure an agreement? What would that settlement look like? And what other important trends are emerging that will shape the future trajectory of the conflict?

We've invited a panel of acute analysts and observers of the conflict to summarise the current state of play in Palestine, and where things are headed.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Dept. of History

Lydda, 1948

A city, a massacre, and the Middle East today.

This content is behind a paywall, but this essay is well worth the effort to find a copy. I wish all those having a hard time coping with Palestinians demanding their rights would read this account, by a Jewish Israeli senior correspondent at Haaretz Newspaper and a member of its editorial board, and put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians originally from Lydda.

In his acceptance speech, given at an official Hanukkah
party in New York, Mayor Bloomberg remained true to U.S. Jewish American
politics and thus, before making his speech, cleared his intention to donate
the money to “promote commerce between the people in Palestine and the people
in Israel” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As a Palestinian American businessman on the ground in the
occupied Palestinian territory for twenty years, I did not know whether to
laugh or cry at this seemingly generous announcement. This well-intentioned act
is flawed for several reasons.

First, “commerce between the people in Palestine
and the people in Israel”
is not hindered by lack of funds; it is stifled due to 46 years of Israeli
military occupation, each year of which has been squarely supported by the U.S.
Every single strategic economic resource needed to build Palestine, from water,
land, borders, trade routes, frequencies, airspace, and so much more are 100%
micromanaged by the Israeli military. Until the dirty boot of military
occupation is removed from the necks of Palestinians, joint commerce can only
serve to beautify a status quo which is creeping toward a state of Apartheid,
not peace.

Second, with Israel’s
military occupation and structural discrimination against Palestinians on both
sides of the green line intensifying over the past few years, there is no
appetite in the Palestinian community for more commerce with Israel,
given that Palestine’s economy is
already massively dependent on Israel’s
economy by sheer fact of the military restrictions that Israel
places on Palestinian economic development.

Today, the only appetite in Palestine,
and many corners of the world, is to intensify boycott, divestment and
sanctions on Israel
until Israelis feel the pain of occupation enough to want to end it. This
cost-based approach is being more and more articulated by progressive Jewish
Americans too, as was recently penned by Kathleen Peratis in the Daily Beast’s Open Zion (If
You Want Two States, Support BDS, October 16th,
2013), as well as by enlightened Jewish Israelis such as
journalist Gideon Levy in Haaretz (The Iran case proves
it: Sanctions will get Israel to end the occupation, Nov. 30, 2013).

Instead of wasting $1M on trying to promote commerce between
an occupied people and their occupiers, I have a much more constructive
suggestion for Mayor Bloomberg: transfer the funds to the New York-based Jewish
American organization, Encounter.

Encounter was founded by two rabbinical students and has two
rabbis on its board. Jewish American political pundit Peter Beinart recently
mentioned Encounter in his recent piece in the New York Review of Books (The
American Jewish Cocoon, September
26, 2013). Encounter is an amazing group of dynamic Jewish
Americans who are breaking the divide, not by chumming up to the reality of
separation, discrimination, and occupation, but rather by mobilizing Jewish Americans
from all walks of life, with the bulk being rabbinical students and mainstream
Jewish American leaders. The group brings delegations of Jewish Americans - Orthodox,
Conservative and Reform - to the West Bank and engages
them in active listening to hear directly from Palestinian community members
and leaders from the “other” side of the conflict, viewpoints that most have
never heard before.

This is not about normalizing the occupation – far from it.
It is about sharing a reality that most Jews around the world have had
purposely excluded from their education. It goes without saying that I too
learn a lot from engaging the participants.

For nearly six years I’ve been a speaker to these
delegations. As a matter of fact, I usually drop what I’m doing and head to Bethlehem
to participate in the program because I see real education and progress being
made. By looking into the eyes of the participants, even though many may not
agree on much of the politics, I have come to learn that Mayor Bloomberg’s own
Jewish American community can’t stand what they see on this side of the
Separation Wall, if given half a chance to experience it.

Indeed, we in the Palestinian business community can take
care of ourselves, as soon as our economy can breathe freely. In the meantime,
and toward that end, I urge Mayor Bloomberg and those like him to empower those
doing the nitty-gritty, behind the scenes education to enable equality,
freedom, and independence to take root, for all of our sakes.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

It's time to officially accept the reality: A nuclear occupying power like Israel is comfortable in the current setting of negotiations.

By Muhammad Shtayyeh

The decision to accept the two-state solution was not easy for the people of Palestine. Our declaration of independence in 1988 - the acceptance of a State of Palestine on the 1967 border - was a huge and painful concession for the sake of achieving peace with Israel. To this day, we have not seen any such process of compromise on the Israeli side - quite the opposite, in fact. And unfortunately we have seen little in the way of international intervention.

The historic Palestinian compromise has never been matched by any Israeli government. Since 1967, Israel's policy has been guided by one aim: to take as much Palestinian land with the lowest number of Palestinians, while making life so unbearable for Palestinians that they are directly or indirectly forced to leave. This colonization process, a war crime under international law, is the biggest obstacle to achieving the two-state solution, a solution born out of international consensus. The Israeli government is fully committed to this illegal enterprise, de facto rejecting the two-state solution.

Employing empty rhetoric and diversionary tactics, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offers negotiations without parameters and draws attention to Iran. These disingenuous statements continue while his cabinet is split between those promoting the expansion of settlements and those joining demonstrations against the release of Palestinian prisoners.

We are committed not to release details from the negotiating process, but I think my resignation betrays the lack of seriousness on the Israeli side. And it was not an easy decision. When I meet people I always remind them that no one stands to benefit more from peace than the Palestinians - we are the occupied people, after all.

My decision to leave the negotiating table would not have been necessary in the presence of a serious Israeli partner, one that was ready and able to make the decisions needed to prepare Israelis for a final-status agreement with Palestine. We challenge Netanyahu to hold a cabinet vote, with the parties he chose for his government, on ending the occupation that began in 1967 and accepting a sovereign Palestinian state. Netanyahu's inability to support the two-state solution rests not only on his ideological commitment to colonization but also the fact that, if his cabinet voted, it would show itself in favor of an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people.

Twenty years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel's behavior has not changed. It's time to officially accept the reality: A nuclear occupying power like Israel is comfortable in the current setting of negotiations. The Israeli government is not pushed to move because of the huge disparity in power between Israel and Palestine and the Israeli lobby's strength with the majority of the U.S. Congress that fully backs the Israeli position.

The success of the Geneva talks over the Iran issue, and the possibility of success for the Syrian issue, makes us wonder why there is no talk about a Geneva–Palestine discussion. We would exchange the current bilateral situation for a multilateral forum where other powers, including Russia, China, the European Union, the Union of South American Nations and the BRICS countries can contribute to a just and lasting peace for Israel, Palestine and the rest of the region.

This proven process would mean the internationalization of the solution. The international community would not only play the role of donor, it would have to be active in implementing resolutions on Israel-Palestine.

To reach a final-status agreement, both Israelis and Palestinians must agree on the endgame. It cannot be denied: This most fundamental requirement for negotiations is missing. An active international role under the framework of a multilateral conference could set and implement requirements and obligations for peace rather than granting impunity to the stronger party so it can violate agreements without any sort of arbitration mechanism.

Everyone but Israel has accepted the formula of a two-state solution on the 1967 borders. All regional blocs agree that the basis for regional stability depends on the end of the Israeli occupation. But as long as Israel continues to be treated with impunity, it will have no incentive to accept the internationally recognized framework for peace.

Israeli policies on the ground continue to reject the historic Palestinian compromise. These policies clearly aim to undermine U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts and put the nail in the coffin of the internationally endorsed two-state solution. This is no longer a secret but the official position voiced by the majority of the Israeli government.

To conclude, Israel is asked to decide whether it wants the two-state solution on the 1967 borders. At the same time, the world must realize that bilateral negotiations are not the answer. If the multilateral framework of the Geneva talks worked elsewhere, why not for Palestine?

Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh is minister in charge of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a former negotiator in the talks with Israel.

The Iran case proves it: Sanctions will get Israel to end the occupation

The settlements are an all-Israeli project and the boycott can't be limited to them.

It appears that international sanctions work and that a boycott is a tool like no other. Even Israel's prime minister has admitted this; he has called on the world not to ease the sanctions and to even intensify them, and following his lead is the shrill U.S. Jewish lobby.

This being the case, the moral is clear: This is the way to act with recalcitrant states. This applies not only to Iran, where the theory is being proved before our eyes, but with another country that does not obey the decisions of the international community.

Israel has signed the Horizon 2020 agreement for scientific research with the EU barring funding from companies or institutions with ties to the settlements. This is irrefutable proof that a boycott threat works well with Israel, too.

The truth is hard to miss. By signing the agreement, Israel gave a hand to the first official international boycott of the settlements. There is no other way to portray this agreement, even including the special appendix that Israel added in protest. Israel, which passes indecent laws against calls for boycotts against it, surrendered and signed on to boycott terms when it began to be hit in the pocket.

Now we have a limited boycott and a harbinger of things to come. The negotiations over the agreement were conducted by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, whose office is located in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem. For some reason, the EU didn't boycott her for this. Negotiations over funds trickling to the settlements are being conducted with a minister who, according to the entire world, has her office in a settlement on Jerusalem's Saladin Street.

This absurdity reveals the hypocrisy of boycotting just the settlements. Every Israeli organization, institution or authority is somehow involved with what's going on beyond the Green Line. Every bank, university, supermarket chain or medical institution has branches, employees or clients who are settlers. The settlements are an all-Israeli project and the boycott can't be limited to them, just as the boycott of apartheid-era South Africa couldn't be limited to the institutions of apartheid.

There everything was apartheid, and here everything is tainted by occupation. Israel funds, protects and nurtures the settlements, so all of Israel is responsible for their existence. It's unfair to boycott just the settlers. We're all guilty. On the other hand, boycotting all of Israel is likely to morph into the rejection of its very existence, something most of the world justly does not want. Therefore, we should rejoice over the limited boycott even if it is tainted by double standards. We should draw lessons from it.

The success achieved with Iran must become the world's road map in how to end the Israeli occupation and the denial of the Palestinians' rights. The outline is clear. We have had a failed diplomatic effort and decades of the "peace process," the longest in history. We have had endless peace plans buried in drawers, while Israel has continued to build without restraint in the settlements in contravention of the world's position.

So the time has come for sanctions. When these are felt in Israel, only then should an international committee be formed, whether in Geneva, Jerusalem, Oslo or Ramallah, where the world will translate economic sanctions into political achievements.

This worked with Iran, and it will work with Israel and prevent bloodshed. There's no reason to continue the masquerade of peace talks that, with the exception of one American, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, no one takes seriously. Even he will eventually come around because as long as Israelis don't pay a price for the occupation or are blind to it, they won't end it. That's the truth.

The truth is a bitter reality with which no Israeli can be happy. Disconnected from the international reality, most Israelis are convinced that the status quo where the people of one nation lack all rights while the people of another nation enjoy full rights can't continue indefinitely. Maybe this will be the real historic achievement of the negotiations with Iran. It will be the last wake-up call for that sleeping beauty, Israel.

Sam Bahour - Photo

About Me

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American based in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine and is managing partner of Applied Information Management (AIM), which specializes in business development with a niche focus on start-ups and providing executive counsel.
Bahour was instrumental in the establishment of two publicly traded firms: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Center. He is currently an independent director at the Arab Islamic Bank, advisory board member of the Open Society Foundations’ Arab Regional Office, and completed a full term as a Board of Trustees member and treasurer at Birzeit University. In addition to his presidential appointment to serve as a general assembly member of the Palestine Investment Fund, Palestine’s $1B sovereign wealth fund, Bahour serves in various capacities in several community organizations, including co-founder and chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, board member of Just Vision in New York, board member and policy adviser at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and secretariat member of the Palestine Strategy Group.